


many masks unworn

by Visardist



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visardist/pseuds/Visardist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: An AU where everyone wears masks.</p>
<p>Mako receives a Pentecost mask twice in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	many masks unworn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for damnsmartblueboxes on tumblr; prompt chosen from a self-made list of odd AU prompts. I put that AU in the list purely for vanity, since I love masks and chose to go by Visardist because of this.

Most masks are old, are passed down generation to generation. There is always a set, three at minimum, mother or father or child. The bigger families might have more masks, sometimes assigned to family positions and sometimes not, but the one thing that really marks a family out as a Big Family (in both size and societal position) is when they have a mask for the head of the family.

There are no personal masks.

When masks are new, or newish, with no familial markings, people assume the wearer is an orphan, familyless. Most times this is so, but many times it is that they have renounced their family. Or that their family has renounced them.

Mako’s face is bare when Stacker Pentecost comes to see her. Her aunts and uncles have debated back and forth, each one refusing to take her in, declaring she ought to go to one or the other. Until it is decided, she cannot be given a new mask.

Stacker remembers when he first saw her. She had stared up at him through fractured eyeholes, her mask already near to pieces. He’d seen the redness, the tears, even at that distance.

They exchange formal greetings, him, her and the translating social worker. That done, Stacker kneels before her, to look her in the eye. He enunciates carefully the phrases the social worker had helped him with, speaks as clearly and distinctly in the unfamiliar language as possible, as he removes the long-kept mask from the bag. “My family is small now, and many masks go unworn. There is a daughter mask here with no daughter to wear it.” He unwraps the linen carefully, holding it out for her inspection. “Will you do me the honour?”

—

It only really hits home when Mako walks through the Shatterdome again. By necessity, the route they take to the medical bay passes through the Jaeger bays; she has never seen them completely empty before. Even when Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha were patrolling, there was always Lady Danger, being put back together, the promise Stacker had made.

But Crimson and Cherno are gone. And Danger is on the other side of a closed breach, and Striker Eureka at the bottom of the ocean.

No more Jaegers.

No more Sensei.

Jaeger pilots cannot wear masks while drifting, and Mako and Raleigh had already removed their helmets to breathe easier. She bows her head, the better to hide her tears (and it’s tempting to pretend that they are tears of victory or joy, as they were when she realised Raleigh was alive).

Going through medical makes it easy for her to zone out, to turn this way and that, mechanically, be positioned just so on the chair. Raleigh is the one who guides her back to her room, presses a cup of hot chocolate into her hand and makes her drink. It’s easy for her to sit in silence with him. It’s easy to squeeze back when he squeezes her hand.

It’s there that Herc finds them, while the rest of the Dome is in euphoria. He doesn’t tap at the door- the thumping turns out to be Max- but he waits for Raleigh to let him in. He holds the linen-wrapped object in his good hand out to Mako. “He left it in my keeping. In case- in case—”

He has to stop there, because he can’t speak past the lump in his throat. But it’s okay. They both understand.

Mako has to stare blankly at it for a few seconds before taking it. She unwraps it swiftly, delicately, as if its contents might shatter if she is the least bit impatient with it.

Stacker’s mask stares up at her. The mask for the head of the family Pentecost.

Her hands shake as she lifts it up.


End file.
